Swallowed
by CloudedCreation
Summary: Above all, Minato was a very selfish man.


He loved this village, the structure and the atmosphere and the people, how she always rose to the challenge and never bowed down under it. He had lived his entire life here, gone from a baby to a boy to a shinobi within her walls. He had faced failures and victories here, a non-name orphan and the strongest man alive, and his face had smiled through it all.

He had fallen in love in this village, a girl with red hair like the coolest of fires, a wide smile and green eyes that sparkled even when the sky was dull.

The roar reverberated all around him, and Namikaze Minato quaked in its wake.

He had thought himself unbeatable – his pride too big for one man's body – and now the Gods had seen it fit to beat him down. Don't fly too close to the sun, they said, for it will burn your wings down.

Minato's cloak smelled like ash and smoke – and blood, never forget the blood – and it was disappearing bit by bit.

Kushina was dying by his side, her stomach torn wide open even though it didn't show through the skin, and she wouldn't last long now. Still, she continued to get up when thrown to the ground, just like Konoha never accepting defeat.

Minato felt like both crying and laughing, wanting to take her in his arms and never let go as well as take her by the shoulders and shake her out of her stubbornness, the one that made him love her even more.

Hate and love lied close this night.

Minato stared down at the child in his arms – his child, the boy that he had named and loved far longer than he had lived – and wished that he could stop time. That he could stay in this moment indefinitely, with his wife and his child next to him, all alive and well.

He couldn't stop time, though, just move very, very fast.

It didn't look like it would be enough this time.

"Your parents love you," he said and cradled his son closer for a brief moment. "Never doubt that, son."

His hands flashed as he signed faster than he ever had before, and he pretended not to notice the betrayed look that Kushina shot him.

A being came into existence before him – hideous and powerful and _other_ – and he knew there was no going back from here. Knew that he would die – death far less honorable than he had imagined growing up – and that the world would continue to turn without him.

He hated it for that, how little he and his wife really meant in the grand scheme of things, like ants before feet.

The Death God smiled at him, and Minato felt like throwing up, even as his body was accepting far more than it was ever meant to, placing the half that couldn't fit inside his son.

He could have lived, he knew, if he had done things differently. He could have let someone else perform the seal – Kushina who was already dying, perhaps the Sandaime that was getting on in his years, any shinobi in his forces with the chakra available.

He could have held his son in his arms forever, living on to watch him grow from boy to man as he himself did, taught him how to move and how to make leaves split.

To be honest, he should have, because for all that he was Icarus he was still much more valuable than anyone else in this village. He knew what there was out there, the dangers they were gonna face, and he was powerful enough to stand in their way.

For the continuation of this village – and dare he say it, world – he should not be giving up his life here. Should not swallow power beyond him and take it with him into another's stomach.

He should not be dying.

But he doesn't know how to live anymore, so he was.

He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life without Kushina, doesn't want to wake up in a bed that is only warm on one side, a world where her smile won't reach him.

He doesn't want to raise his son on his own.

And he doesn't want to live in a village that will hate that very son, even though he is more of a hero than Minato ever was. A man could be logical, but people, unfortunately, were another story completely.

Minato does not want to watch it in action, especially not in this village.

He closed his eyes, his time having run up, and let out a final tear as he was swallowed up.

Pride, he knew, might have been what made him fall, but it was Greed that was his greatest sin.

Namikaze Minato was, above all, a very selfish man.


End file.
